Little Black Girl Lost 4 (11 page)

Chapter 32

A
lexander Bouvier pretended to be the best servant his master ever had, knowing full well he was going to return the favor someday, even if the debt would be repaid by his own son or daughter vicariously. He asked for and had been granted special permission to hire himself out on weekends, doing whatever laborious work he could find to earn enough money to buy himself and his wife. He worked seven days a week. Sometimes, when work was available, he hired out his evenings during the week in an effort to expedite his family's freedom.

It took five years to accomplish this because he had to give half his earnings to Bouvier. By then, they had three children. One of them, a lovely blonde, blue-eyed girl, obviously belonged to their master. Before they realized the baby was sired by Damien Bouvier, they had decided to name her Julia. But when Bouvier learned that the baby was his, he loved her, and named her Kayla, after his grandmother.

When Alexander had saved enough money to pay for his wife and children, including Kayla, Bouvier gave him two teams of horses, two wagons, which he strung together, and all the supplies Alexander could carry to start a new life. Altruism had little if anything to do with his magnanimity. The gifts were a way to assuage a mind saturated with guilt. They were born of a mind that had come to terms with what he had done to a man who had served him faithfully for many years.

As a final gift, Bouvier gave back all the money Alexander had been paying him over the years for their freedom. He told him he had saved it for him as a surprise and for his own good, just in case something happened to his savings.

Later, after they left New Orleans, Alexander dropped the name Bouvier and became known as Alexander Tresvant. He moved his family west to the Rocky Mountains of what later became the Colorado Territory, where he met a different group of Christians who not only believed what the Bible said, but actually practiced its commandments. They sold him land, educated him and his family, and taught them that all men were of one blood. Over the course of time, he found gold on his property, long before The Pike's Peak Gold Rush in 1861, which later became known as the Colorado Gold Rush.

Alexander then hired several white Christian attorneys he trusted to procure vast amounts of land in New Orleans, where he later produced sugar and became a wealthy plantation owner. By the time he and his family moved back to New Orleans, Damien Bouvier had died. As far as Alexander was concerned, when Damien bequeathed his land and money to his progeny, he also left them his debt and dishonor. He had read that legally, when a person is left anything in a will, the person takes responsibility for debt as well as assets. And so revenge would be taken on those he left behind when he went to his grave.

 

 

Beaumont heard the bid and looked to see who dared offer more than he. When he saw Walker Tresvant's bright white teeth against his rich mahogany skin, he glared at him and then raised his handkerchief again, offering a bid of twenty-seven hundred. He didn't like Walker because he threatened to bring shame on the Bouvier name by seducing his sister, Marie-Elise, and impregnating her. Then Walker made sure that it was the talk of the parish, so that if she did not marry him, which was fine with him, everyone would know her condition and who had gotten her in it if the baby somehow disappeared after it was born.

Beaumont's dislike of Walker wasn't a color issue. In eighteenth century New Orleans, money trumped race. If Walker had loved her, Beaumont would have been okay with the marriage.

The ensuing scandal was legendary, as Marie-Elise was engaged at the time to Mason Beauregard. The Beauregards were one of New Orleans' leading families. Their joining was supposed to be one that would solidify their enormous wealth and make it possible to expand by buying out as many small plantations as they could. Walker knew this, and pounced on her as if she were a delectable slice of sweet honeydew melon. He found her to be easy pickings because she did not love Mason, nor did she want to marry him. The marriage was a sham. It was being foisted on her as her duty as a Bouvier, nothing more.

Marie-Elise Bouvier's pregnancy was the sweetest revenge, as this was what Damien had done to Jennifer two generations earlier. It also served as a permanent divider of two of the wealthiest families in New Orleans, making it possible for Walker Tresvant to buy the smaller plantations while the Beauregards and the Bouviers were at each other's throats. He loved it, laughing uncontrollably whenever he thought of it. Were it not for the Tresvants' considerable wealth, Walker would have been castrated and lynched—in that order.

Instead, the whole episode was legitimized by a gala spectacle of a wedding to save the face of the Bouvier clan. The Bouvier money was able to secure the presence of several mayors, judges, and politicians from as far away as New York City and Chicago, in addition to every influential family in New Orleans—except the Beauregards. This was by no means the first interracial marriage of a black man and a white woman in New Orleans. It was, however, the first one where an affluent white woman from a powerful family married the offspring of a slave that the aforementioned family formerly owned.

The wedding was the social event of the summer and practically shut down the city as if it were a holiday. If the Bouviers wanted a business owner at the wedding and he didn't close his store that day, they threatened to run him out of business—all of this to hide the shameful truth that Marie-Elise was already pregnant with Walker Tresvant's child and couldn't marry Mason Beauregard.

Marie-Elise did not have to marry Walker, but if she didn't, she would have suffered public humiliation for being with child without the benefit of marriage. Later, when she had the baby, everyone would know the father was a nigger, which would have been more humiliating. Marrying a rich nigger and then having his baby solved everything. Besides, she adored Walker and was happy to have him as a husband.

Part of the reason she had premarital sex with him was because she hated being sold into a form of slavery by her own father. Allowing Walker to bed her, and in due course impregnate her, liberated her, and demoralized those who sought to gain from her misery.

Still gazing at Walker, Beaumont thought he was trying to buy himself a beautiful bed wench to humiliate his younger sister. To prevent that from happening, he believed he had to continue bidding no matter what price he had to pay. Walker knew this and continued bidding to aggravate his brother-in-law. The two men continued bidding back and forth until her price reached five thousand dollars; twice as much as what Beaumont would have paid had Walker not gotten involved.

“Congratulations, dear brother,” Walker said, smiling broadly. “Do enjoy her, if you can.” Then he laughed uproariously.

Chapter 33

“Y
ou're going to be all right,” Rutgers said to Ibo.

“Am I, Captain?” she said, staring unflinchingly in his eyes.

“I'm a man of my word,” Rutgers said. “He paid an enormous sum for you and promised me he would treat you well.”

“So long as I cooperate, right, Captain?” she said, firing lightning bolts with her eyes.

“I don't think you'll have to worry about that,” Rutgers said, smiling.

“Oh, really? And here I was thinking that that was why you kept me unspotted,” she said. ‘Just when I thought being unblemished brought you a greater price, you were actually worried about me.”

“It did. As I said, he paid a lot of money for you . . . nearly ten times your worth. You can thank the feud between Tresvant and the man who bought you for the drastic price increase.”

“Feud? Between a black man and a white man? Hmmm. Then it is as you have said here. Free blacks with money are treated almost like whites.”

“In Walker Tresvant's case, exactly the same. I've done good by you. You'll see that later.”

Having paid the auctioneer the agreed upon price, Beaumont Bouvier walked over to where his friend and his property stood. He raised his handkerchief, signaling the driver of his horse drawn carriage.

“I guess this is good-bye,” Rutgers said and took her hand in his, kissing it gently.

“Good-bye, Captain,” she said.

The carriage stopped about fifteen feet from where they were standing. Beaumont told his driver to put her trunk on the carriage. Then he politely escorted his newly purchased bed wench to his carriage. He helped her climb in and then got into it himself.

Rutgers looked at her one last time and said, “Remember our discussions and you'll be just fine.” He was referring to Shakespeare's plays and the lessons she learned from them. They were supposed to help her gain her freedom in the years to come. “Do you understand?”

“I have always understood you, Captain,” she said without looking at him. “I am not sure if you ever understood me.”

“Farewell, my friend,” Rutgers said to Beaumont.

“May you experience calm seas on your journeys,” Beaumont said.

Rutgers tapped the carriage twice, signaling to the driver that it was okay to pull off. He stood there in the auction market and watched the carriage until it disappeared. Then he went back to the auction block and watched the bidding for his other slaves, carefully keeping records of what each slave sold for. While he stood there watching and listening, from time to time he thought about Ibo Atikah Mustafa and hoped that she would one day be free.

Chapter 34

B
eaumont Bouvier was a very meticulous man, believing wholeheartedly in ancient Greek philosophy, especially the works of Socrates, his student, Plato, and his student, Aristotle, who taught Alexander the Great. Aristotle's ideas on virtue and the greater good, along with Greek slavery, shaped his thinking; it was how he justified his part in the practice of American slavery. He believed that if the enlightened Greek society was in large part a society that functioned mainly by the labor of slaves, there couldn't be anything wrong or evil about it.

Being a student of history, politics, and philosophy, he treated his slaves the same way the Greeks treated theirs, which was why he seldom used the whip as an instrument of discipline, preferring rather to sell the difficult slave to a master who had no compunction. He believed in order, discipline, and fair play. As long as his slaves did their jobs, were obedient, and brought no shame on the Bouvier name, they were treated well. Some were even allowed to work in New Orleans on the weekends to earn money to buy their freedom.

On the way home, he stopped by his attorney's office to handle the formal legalities of purchasing chattel, and other formalities concerning the execution of his will, all of which took about an hour and a half. Then he headed out to his sprawling sugarcane plantation, Bouvier Hill.

They entered the gates of Bouvier Hill and made their way up the long path to the immaculate white mansion called Bouvier Manor. The slaves referred to it as the big house. It resembled the residence at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, which would begin construction a year from now under President George Washington's administration in October, 1792, and concluded eight years later when John Adams and his wife Abigail moved in.

The plantation grounds were spectacular and nearly perfect in appearance. In the midst of the trees were stables, slave quarters, and sugarcane as far as the eye could see. Between the stables and the slave quarters was the sugar-house. Smoke could be seen billowing from its chimneys. About thirty yards from the mansion were other buildings that made the property look like a small community. In many ways, it was.

Bouvier Hill had more than two hundred slaves; twenty-five of them were skilled carpenters, shoemakers, coopers, blacksmiths, weavers, curriers, sawyers, knitters, stable-hands, and distillers. Additionally, the domestic servants included cooks, maids, launderers, butlers, and personal attendants.

The driver stopped the carriage in front of the mansion. Then he jumped down and opened the door for Monsieur Bouvier. Several slaves, all of them men dressed in fine clothing, waited at attention for him to disembark from the carriage. Bouvier stepped out first and then offered his hand to help Ibo out. When the slaves saw her, they all recoiled a little, looking at each other for answers that none of them had. Then they looked at Bouvier and waited for instructions on what they were to do.

“Aubrey,” Beaumont said to his butler.

“Yes, Monsieur Bouvier,” Aubrey began. “What is your pleasure, sir?”

“Take . . .” He paused and looked at the young woman he had purchased. “Forgive me, dear. In my haste to get away from Walker Tresvant, I neglected to ask you and Rutgers your name. What are you called?”

“Ibo.”

“Ibo?” Beaumont questioned with a disdainful frown. “Oh, dear . . . that will never do. We must come up with a new name for you right away. We so want you to fit in here.”

“My name is Ibo Atikah Mustafa.”

“Yes, yes. I certainly understand your reluctance to part with it, but you are in America now, and you shall have a name that will help you blend in.”

“My name is Ibo Atikah Mustafa,” she said defiantly.

Beaumont smiled and said, “I want you to fit in, so I'll let you decide what you want to be called, so long as it is a French name, yes?” She just looked at him unwaveringly. He continued, saying, “How about one of these: Desiree, Simone, Noelle, Gabrielle, Josephine, Jacqueline, Madeline, Danielle, Renee, Celine, Catherine, or perhaps Lauren? You decide, dear. There are so many to choose from, yes?”

Ibo composed herself and remembered that she had to play along until she could gain his confidence and then somehow escape. Even though Rutgers had told her she would be given a new name, she couldn't bring herself to agree to a name change so soon. Agreeing to a name change essentially amounted to a change in identity as far as she was concerned. However, if she didn't agree, she was inviting a lashing like those she had seen aboard the
Windward
and at the auction market. The last thing she wanted was to have her back butchered by some sadistic slave who enjoyed his work.

She nodded once and said, “I will choose one.”

“If you have any trouble remembering any of the names, let me know and I'll help you decide, yes? I don't suspect you will if half of what my friend Joseph says about you is true. He says you speak five languages in addition to dozens of African gibberish. Is that right?”

She nodded. “Yoruba, English, Spanish, French, Portuguese, and Dutch.”

“Yes, yes, well, I don't think you'll need the Yoruba around here.” Beaumont smiled and looked at Aubrey. “Escort her to my chambers and get her something to eat.”

Aubrey frowned and looked at the other well-dressed slaves. Then he bowed slightly and said, “Yes, Monsieur Bouvier.” He gestured in the direction of the house with his right hand while still bowed.

“And Aubrey . . .”

“Yes, Monsieur Bouvier?”

His eyes blazed when he said, “See to it that she is extended every courtesy. Every courtesy. Do you understand?”

Aubrey looked at Ibo and said, “Right this way, Mademoiselle Mustafa.”

As they walked into the mansion and up the winding staircase, he said, “If you like, I would be happy to help you decide on what you are to be called.”

Ibo decided that now would be a good time to pretend to be friendly with the house slaves and gather as much information as she could, so she would be ready when it came time to try to escape to a better place.

She looked at him and said, “Aubrey is it?”

“Yes. ”

She showed him her beautiful smile to put him at ease before saying, “Of the names that he chose, which one do you like?”

Aubrey returned her smile and then said, “Well, of the names he said, I like Lauren Renee Bouvier. It has a ring to it, don't you think?”

“Lauren Renee Bouvier,” she repeated. “Hmmm. It doesn't sound as good as Ibo Atikah Mustafa, but I could learn to like it. Lauren Renee Bouvier. Yes, yes. I think that works well for me, Aubrey. Thank you.”

“You're welcome, mademoiselle.” He stopped in front of Beaumont's bedroom. As he opened the door, he said, “Now, can I bring you something to eat? You must be quite hungry by now. When did you last eat?”

“Yes, I haven't eaten since yesterday. Please bring me something,” she said.

“What would you like?”

“You choose for me. Bring something you would like to eat . . . your favorite meal.”

“Sure thing, Lauren,” he said, trying out her new name on her.

She smiled.

Then he opened the door for her. She stepped in and saw a naked black man in the bed. He was aroused.